U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Wednesday announced that America will be working together with Venezuela to tap into the country’s mining sector after meeting with “acting President” Delcy Rodríguez.
Burgum arrived in Caracas on Wednesday, marking the latest in an unprecedented series of visits from U.S. officials to Venezuela following the arrest of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and the start of Rodríguez’s cooperation with the United States and President Donald Trump.
Burgum is the second U.S. cabinet secretary to meet with Rodríguez after Energy Sec. Chris Wright’s visit in February. Speaking with Breitbart News Daily in January, Burgum explained the important potential of Venezuela’s oil and other resources in securing U.S. energy dominance throughout the Western Hemisphere.
In a social media post, Ambassador Laura Dogu, chargé d’affaires to the Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU), stated that Secretary Burgum, as head of the Trump administration’s National Energy Dominance Council, travelled to Caracas to hold meetings with the regime’s interim authorities, establish contacts with U.S. and Venezuelan companies, and work towards a legitimate mining sector and secure critical mineral supply chains.
Ambassador Dogu added that his visit marks a “historic step forward” in advancing President Donald Trump’s three-phase plan towards restoring democracy in Venezuela for the benefit of both Venezuelans and Americans.
Rodríguez met with Burgum at the Miraflores presidential palace on Wednesday afternoon. The regime’s main state-owned outlet VTV reported that both countries agreed to move forward in establishing a “long-term productive partnership, with an emphasis on energy as an area of cooperation.”
“As part of the dialogue between our countries, I welcomed Doug Burgum, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and Chairman of the Energy Dominance Council, to Miraflores for a meeting aimed at strengthening bilateral exchange in the areas of energy and mining,” Rodríguez wrote on social media alongside photos of the meeting.
Speaking to the press after the encounter, the acting president said that both sides spoke for about two hours on mining, metals, and investment flows to Venezuela. She announced that the Venezuelan socialist regime will reform its draconian mining laws to attract U.S. investment into the sector — a move that echoes similar reforms to the nation’s socialist hydrocarbon laws in recent weeks.
Rodríguez asserted that the reforms will be presented “in the coming days,” and called upon all members of the socialist regime-controller parliament to “act swiftly so that we can present the people of Venezuela and the national and international business sectors with investment and development opportunities in the mining sector.” She reportedly disclosed that the reforms will allow fewer parliamentary controls on the establishment of joint ventures, opening up opportunities for the participating of private mining operators. The local outlet Correo del Caroni pointed out that the Venezuelan regime has not made any changes to the nation’s mining laws over the past 25 years.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Burgum met with mining executives and traders gathered at a hotel in Caracas, and told them that the United States wants to help them tap into Venezuela’s mineral wealth.
Some of Venezuela’s mineral resources, Bloomberg listed, include coal, gold, diamonds, bauxite, copper and coltan — all of which, the outlet emphasized, could support President Trump’s efforts to reduce America’s dependence on China of minerals used in the manufacturing of mobile phone devices, jet engines, and batteries, among others.
“When we are working together it can only mean two things, which is prosperity for the people of Venezuela and for the citizens of the United States, and it also brings peace and stability for the world,” Burgum reportedly said to Rodríguez.
Under Rodríguez, the Venezuelan socialist regime, known for maintaining decades’ worth of hostilities against America, began collaborating with the United States, seeking American help and investment to restore its rundown oil and energy sectors in return for sharing its oil.
The left-wing propaganda network Telesur reported that Rodríguez affirmed Venezuela is “willing to address specific agendas that benefit both the people of the United States and the people of Venezuela through cooperation channels.”
“Delcy Rodríguez, who is the President of Venezuela, is doing a great job, and working with U.S. Representatives very well,” President Trump wrote on a Wednesday Truth Social post. “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Rodríguez thanked Trump for his post moments later.
“I thank President Donald Trump for his government’s kind willingness to work together on an agenda that strengthens binational cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of the United States and Venezuela,” she wrote.
The Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported on Thursday journalists from several outlets were initially barred from entering the Miraflores presidential palace — but were ultimately granted entry to cover the event after Burgum arrived.
El Nacional, a newspaper that suffered widespread censorship and had its main assets seized by the socialist regime, pointed out that Burgum’s visit marked the first time in a decade that the Venezuelan socialists have allowed independent media outlets to cover a presidential event at Miraflores.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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